Addiction

'This Is Me, Take It or Leave It'

Posted by Shemuses from The Tyee

In photos and words, citizens of a gritty community create a vibrant self-portrait.

Paul Levesque has spent 40 years in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and he sees the neighbourhood as a sole reminder of the way this city used to be. "It's the last of an era, of Vancouver built in the 1950s, '60s, '70s," he says, standing in the pouring rain at Hastings and Dunlevy. "It's unique. It's not fictional; it's reality. The east end community is not like any other community, because it's not plastic. It's not like keeping up with the Joneses, because we can't afford to keep up with the Joneses. It's a poverty-stricken area. It's painful. But it's also reality."

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A neighbourhood speaks - and hears its own voice

Posted by Shemuses from Globe and Mail

'I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them," photographer Diane Arbus once wrote. It's a comment that came repeatedly to mind reading Hope in Shadows, a collection of photographs taken and stories told by residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The book, which comes out next month, grew from a popular program run over the past five years by the Pivot Legal Society, a non-profit legal advocacy organization based in the neighbourhood. Since 2003, Pivot has been handing out cameras to residents and assembling pictures in a calendar. If you live or work in the downtown area, Gastown or Yaletown in particular, you've likely bought one of these from a street vendor at some point.

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Expert Advisory Committee report: Insite works

Posted by Shemuses

Late Friday afternoon (PST) Health Canada tried to quietly release the Final report of the Expert Advisory Committee on Supervised Injection Site Research. (Since government reports public domain I've created a downloadable, easier to read PDF version that can be found here). Why quietly release such an upbeat report? Because the Health Minister is ideologically committed to closing INSITE. Unfortunately for him, the report confirms what researchers and scientists have been telling us all along: that INSITE works.

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Hollywood's Leading Interventionist On Heath Ledger's Death

Posted by robynoratocom

A&E's Interventionist Ken Seeley talks about Heath Ledger's recent death, the perils of sleeping pills, and addictive personalities.

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Fighter for Addicts Ready to Quit

Posted by Shemuses from The Tyee

After spending the past 13 years trying to save Vancouver's poor from the filthy alleys of the Downtown Eastside, Ann Livingston doesn't have a pension plan or any significant savings, but she has decided to quit her job.

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Pickton found guilty on 6 counts of 2nd-degree murder

Posted by Shemuses from CBC

A B.C. Supreme Court jury on Sunday found Robert William Pickton guilty on six counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He still faces murder charges in connection with the deaths of 20 other women, but no decision has been made on whether to hold a second trial, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said.

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B.C. capital wants safe injection sites established

Posted by Shemuses from CBC

Victoria will request federal permission to set up a safe injection site — similar to the one operating in Vancouver — in order to tackle the city's growing drug-addiction problem. A call for safe injection sites in the city is among the recommendations in a report released Wednesday by the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C.

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